On Nov. 12, over 100 Creston Valley residents attended a public forum for candidates running in the Nov. 19 civic elections. Organized by Tamara Fox, Joanne Ferry and Jesse Willicome (who acted as moderator), the forum was the only opportunity for voters to question the candidates running for town council, mayor and Regional District of Central Kootenay Area B director.
Of Creston’s 13 town council candidates, 10 — Justin Lysohirka, Ingrid Voigt, Malcolm Ferguson, Renee Kyle, Scott Veitch, Wes Graham, Rhonda Barter, Ed Vondracek, Joanna Wilson and Jerry Schmalz — attended, while Tanya Ducharme, Judy Gadicke and Louis Mihaly did not.
Both candidates for mayor, Ron Toyota and Joe Snopek, attended, although Toyota didn’t arrived until the fifth question was read.
Ed McNiven was the sole RDCK candidate at the forum; incumbent John Kettle did not attend.
The candidates fielded both pre-selected questions and impromptu questions from the audience.
What ideas do you have to attract small businesses that create jobs?
Justin Lysohirka: Affordable housing is definitely needed for families to move here and start small businesses. “Downtown beautification and cleanup would be awesome, especially less vandalism and cleanup of trash, so it’s not like trash all over the place when people drive by and they’ll get turned off of moving here. And shop locally is definitely another key thing.”
Ingrid Voigt: As a property manager, she finds housing prices are reasonable compared to the rest of the province. “Home buyers are the ones supporting the tax base. They’re the ones bringing in the money to support infrastructure.” The more people we can attract to the community, the more businesses we would open. The Creston Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Creston Valley Business Association should work more closely.
Malcolm Ferguson: “We all know we live in an agricultural area. Any new business that comes into town could be related to agriculture. For instance, we don’t have a large-sized juice pant in town or anywhere near here. ... You also have to have places for people to live. I think more affordable housing ... needs to be responded to at the same time.”
Renee Kyle: “I would first like to talk to all the businesses that have left. ... I’d find out why the businesses didn’t work” to find out how to avoid similar mistakes. “We may find out something about the community and what people living in the community need and want. ... I think there’s a lot of reasons why a business fails, and I think that’s the first place to start looking.”
Scott Veitch: “I would prepare a strategic plan, which I’ve basically sort of done a rough draft of, as to reviewing what we have, again, what we don’t have and what we want, and why we’re losing them. ... It’s all about being local. We’re not going to get big box tenants. We need to focus on being local and take advantage of what we’ve got.”
Wes Graham: “In the past, we’ve worked on the downtown beautification project, trying to get our downtown looking better, and we’ve put a lot of money into that. That is one aspect of attracting business.” Land is needed for light industrial business. “Maybe we need to look at business taxes. I believe businesses pay six-to-one what residential does, and that might play a factor.”
Rhonda Barter: A friend, Chilliwack Mayor Sharon Gaetz (acclaimed for a second term as mayor), told her “they now have a corporation run by the municipality ... working on getting businesses and sustaining them. It’s hard to be a business owner here. I know because I was one.” Chilliwack has 57 new businesses in the last year, and most of the corporation’s mandate is sustaining them.
Ed Vondracek: “Council has worked on downtown [revitalization] to encourage the beauty of downtown to make people want to shop downtown. ... We have to somehow work together as consumers and be encouraged to shop locally. When we shop locally, our business people ... can survive.”
Joanna Wilson: “I definitely believe if we continue to enhance downtown and perhaps extend it all the way up Northwest Boulevard and make it a place that is attractive to visitors and people living here.” The arts community “is one thing to keep people here, as well.”
Joe Snopek: “I came to the valley in 1982. We had a downtown that was vibrant. We had shoe stores, we had three sporting goods stores. Now, we’ve got a lot of empties. ... I also understand our local service stations are suffering because of 85-cent gas across the line. This is what we’ve got to support. It’s got to be shop local, because everybody that opens a shop hopes at the end of the month to have few dollars in their pocket, not just to break even.”
Jerry Schmalz: “This is something of concern to Creston since my father was in business here in the 1960s. The statistics say that if they build a Wal-Mart anywhere, 50 stores close down within a 100-mile radius. Well, we’re within the radius of three Wal-Marts.” The town and Regional District of Central Kootenay put $100,000 into economic development. “It’s not being funded well enough. We can’t get enough money to attract businesses to come here if we can’t support it with more money in the base.”